Bert Stern

Artist Information

Born Oct. 3, 1929, Brooklyn, N.Y, was an American fashion and celebrity photographer who redefined commercial photography in the U.S. He has shot iconic images of such celebrities as model Twiggy and actresses Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn in addition to his work for advertising and travel publications. His most famous photographs, however, was a collection of 2,500 photographs, some nude or semi-nude, taken of Marilyn Monroe over a three-day period, six weeks prior to her death in 1962. As they were the last posed photographs taken of Monroe, the portfolio has come to be known as "The Last Sitting". The photographs were taken for Vogue, who published several of them following Monroe's death. A book containing these photographs, including copies of proofs over which Monroe had written comments, or crossed out with lipstick, was published in 1992 with the title Marilyn Monroe: The Complete Last Sitting. Stern worked as a photographer on the film Lolita (1962) and was responsible for the publicity photographs of its star Sue Lyon. Stern also directed Jazz on a Summer's Day, a 1959 documentaryfilm set at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. It was filmed and directed by noted commercial and fashion photographer Bert Stern. In 1999 the film was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Bert Stern later died in New York City on June 26th of 2013.